1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvement of a braking device for bicycle wherein two braking systems can be actuated simultaneously by manipulation of a single brake lever.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As prior arts for simultaneous braking device for bicycle there are known, among others, Japanese Patent Publication No. 55 (1980)-22312 and No. 3 (1991)-23394. With each thereof two independent lines of brake wires are divided amid into four parts in total and each end thereof is connected to a movable plate.
Hitherto, it has been taken as preferable to have braking of the front wheel effected later than that of the rear wheel. In the aforementioned prior arts attempts were made for delaying braking of the front wheel such as providing a backlash for the connection between the wire and the movable plate. For that, however, it was necessary to first adjust either brake before adjusting the other brake with its stroke matched, this resulting in decrease of the wife's effective stroke. And this gave rise to a problem that it was then difficult to adjust the gap between the wheel and the brake shoe to be proper for both wheels. Such adjustment was extremely difficult when there were such factors as loosening of the connection with the moving plate, scattering in dimension of the parts involved, deformation of the wheels et cetera, these possibly resulting in failure of braking or of releasing thereof. Worse, with the wire divided into four, there resulted in increase of the number of the parts involved as well as of the man-hours required for assembly and also in relative increase in size of the movable plate which affected the aesthetic quality thereof.
It is the object of the present invention to solve such problems about the prior arts, that is, to provide a braking device with which adjustment of the gap between the wheel and the brake shoe is easy and which functions always satisfactorily. Another object of the invention is to provide a braking device with which braking of the front and rear wheel is effected simultaneously. A further object of the invention is to provide a braking device decreased in the number of parts involved or the man-hours required for assembly and improved in aesthetic quality.
In order to accomplish the aforementioned object, the braking device for bicycle of the present invention comprises two wire brake systems in which two brake wires are led from each brake lever through the outer tube to each brake and, when either brake lever is manipulated, the two brakes are actuated simultaneously. In such braking device there is provided an outer tube relay amid the outer tubes for both brakes for divided ends of the outer tubes to be connected thereto and a fixing means for fixing together two continuous brake wires leading from each brake lever to each brake inside the outer tube relay. The construction described above allows independent adjustment of each wire brake system before fixing together both brake wires, hence an effective stroke can be secured for each brake wire and each brake can be actuated without fail. Since the size of the outer tube relay suffices if it is enough for fixing together both brake wires, there is no problem of it being bulky to affect the aesthetic quality thereof. Also, such brake can be attached easily to an old bicycle in use.